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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I was not intending to speak, but the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, spoke about his hope that the Minister would give an assurance that if a judge sat in an inquiry he would have others to sit with him. I happened to sit on an inquiry of a totally different sort through 1987 and 1988, and I gained the most enormous help from three very talented assessors. I have looked with some dismay and concern at a number of important inquiries where distinguished judges or other people have been asked to sit alone. There is a huge amount of advantage in what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said about having others to assist the judge trying. They would not be the decision-makers: they would be the advisers. In my case, they were called assessors. That would help a great deal and would mitigate the problem, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the absence of a jury meaning that it might not have the same degree of credibility. In those cases, the judge could be assisted by those who would advise, but who certainly would not make the decision.